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by Aithilin



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Childhood, Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-17
Updated: 2017-07-17
Packaged: 2018-12-03 12:56:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11532681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aithilin/pseuds/Aithilin
Summary: Nyx had never been sure if Insomnia could feel like home





	Home

When he first came to Insomnia, he was alone. It had been carefully organized and planned by the Lucian capital. Every detail, despite the anxious waits and long journey alone, everything had been worked out for the Galahdian recruits to slip out of their Nif occupied homeland without getting killed in the process. He had left first, taking the most direct routes on a set schedule, while the others would come later. 

They had hoped to travel together. 

But the Nifs were catching on that the king was working on something, and that something involved the youth of Galahd. 

On some level, Nyx was glad he was the one who got to go first. Being at home— seeing his mother, that house— without Selena there to brighten everything, had been hard. He would have left sooner, if the Lucians handling the extraction had allowed it. 

First there was the ferry. That was the easy part. No one questioned how a bartender in an occupied territory once allied with Lucis had made enough money to travel. Drink always flowed more freely after a tragedy. His papers were at the ready, he only took what he couldn't bear to be without, the necessary documents all in place for the trip. 

On his way out, he was just another Galahdian youth looking for greener pastures in other territories. 

There were prepared answers for them. He had run through them with Crowe and Libertus more than a dozen times, but knew they were both smart enough to not get caught. As he stepped off the boat and onto the docks of Galdin Quay, Nyx was less certain about himself. 

There was an invitation tucked into his jacket pocket. Nearly folded and intended to get him not only into the Crown City, but also to his new life. He knew that it was coded to look like some other common paper from the Lucis outlands— an offer of employment in an outpost. He knew that it was appropriately non-threatening. His blade was another matter. 

“You don't have daemons here?” Nyx asked when the soldier stopped him on his way down to the pier. It was stupid, and smarmy, and he could see one of the Lucian handlers waiting with a hand tucked into a jacket pocket. “Just assumed everywhere was as fucked as Galahd.”

Once pushed through, he hurried to the contact point and pulled out his documentation. Breathing easy as he was cleared of the Nif-run ferries and groups just arriving.

He wondered which route his friends would take. If they’d pass through a different gate, if they'd be rattled around in the back of an ancient truck with a handful of other recruits from the other islands. If they’d see an easy crossing, or if they’d be stopped and searched and dragged off. He wondered if they’d be put together in the spartan, military barracks he had been shown— half the beds empty and a Lucian officer marking off names. 

As the week passed, and more people arrived, some of the beds were simply left empty. 

“They aren't coming,” the recruit next to him said— red-haired, fresh-faced, and far too cold for a kid younger than him. “The Nifs are getting wise to us little pests slipping through. Heard from the other new guys that the ports are getting closed off back home.” 

Nyx didn't get anxious until his friends were late. Until the week was almost out, and his friends were late. He could picture it clearly: them coming in the way he did, Crowe mouthing off, Libs trying to calm the situation. Just another “sorry, we’ll have news soon” when he pressed their babysitter for information. Just two more empty beds. 

When they were dragged in, both furious and exhausted, Nyx could barely contain his relief. 

“Get off, you ass!” Crowe shoved him away, dropping her bag on the empty bed marked with her name. She checked the bed to make it was hers before falling into it; “they had better drink here, because that was just absolute shit.”

Libertus was, as always, friendlier. He wrapped Nyx up in a tight hug, relieved to be behind the Wall and fortifications of the Lucian capital. Relieved to see familiar faces, to meet new people recruited the same way, to feel safe for the first time since growing up to learn what a war was. 

It would be months of basic training before they were loaned their magic. Months of drills and duties and discipline. Months of falling far too easily into new roles and new positions, at least for Nyx. Months of tight, cramped quarters and their colleagues disappearing into the city after too many chances given and too many failures. 

It was months of faces coming and going before Nyx learnt to shut off the part of him that got attached so easily. Years before his little core of friends had made grew past Crowe and Libs. Years before he was selected by the Marshal to bloody new recruits on quick missions outside of the Wall, before the Captain learnt he cared more about human life than hollow victories.

It was years before the prince joined his father on the official inspections. 

The inspections happened regularly. The king seemed to know all of them by name, as they came and went. He walked the lines easily, his power tugging at each of them as their borrowed slices called to go back, to cross that divide between them. Nyx remembered the way the magic sang in his veins as its master, his master, walked past each time. He remembered the way his eyes shone and his world focused. 

At least until the prince first joined in on the inspections. He was just a kid. A child trying to imitate his father. A scrawny twelve year-old falling into step with his king— occasionally having a small skip to keep up with longer strides. 

Nyx had tried very hard not to smile at the serious blue eyes and little pout. 

“Ulric,” Regis paused at him, offered a smile; “good work with those recruits. I'm told they're the finest to graduate.”

“Thank you, your majesty.”

“Id like you to train my son, if it can be arranged.”

“Of course, your majesty.”

It was later, when the details were worked out and the training regimen scheduled, that Nyx dropped his pretences with the prince. He was far too amused by the way the kid took the training so seriously, listened to every lesson and drill and seemed crushed by his failures 

”Alright, young king, we need to set a few proper rules,” Nyx said after Noctis struggled with warping one afternoon. If it should come naturally to anyone, it was the prince.

“What?”

“Rules. Simple ground rules.” He was starting to recognise that wary side eyed look from the kid. “One, no over thinking. Actually, make that two. Or three.”

“What?”

“Rule one is to have fun. I'm bored and you're a kid. So let's play tag.”

“Tag?”

“Tag. Specifically warp-tag.”

The small smile that earned him was all the answer he needed.

Nyx remembered coming to Insomnia. He remembered the fear and anxiety that ate away at him and those like him. He remembered fearing for his life, despite thinking that he didn't have much to live for, certainly not back home. He remembered thinking of the Kingsglaive as a way station— just something that would suffice for the time being. Or kill him. He had never really fussed over either option. 

The sense of home, of duty, came after training Noctis. Came after catching the kid as he fell and brushing the training grounds’ dust off him before sending home. It came after seeing something of the future in the prince, even if he didn't know it just yet. Came after the kid was well into his teens and Nyx was being blamed as a bad influence.

“You went snooping, young king,” he scolded once when Noct showed up on his birthday with a present. “I thought those files were confidential.”

“I bought Libertus a drink. He told me everything.”

“I owe him,” Nyx hadn't celebrated a birthday in years. But he couldn't refuse the gleaming steel of the patterned kukri presented to him. ”Shit, your highness. I can’t—”

“Don't start, and that's an order. Put it to good use.”

Nyx could only offer a grin as he tested the blade. As he compared it to his favoured weapon. As he admired the Lucian patterns forged with the steel in decoration. “It'll be an honour.”


End file.
